


Evensong

by acrosspontneuf (FangedAngel)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 21:10:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16227398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FangedAngel/pseuds/acrosspontneuf
Summary: It's not the first time he's watched her train, but it always takes his breath away. She moves like a dancer and the rain seems to move with her, gliding around her steps as she practices her dual-wielding attack, side-stepping around the dummy, light and agile on her feet, flashes of movement that are so quick even Cullen's trained eye can barely keep up. She's as skilled in parrying as Cassandra is with her swords, but Evelyn's ever quicker, ever deadlier, and he wonders how her enemies feel when they realise she's struck them moments after the fact.





	Evensong

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another fic that took months! Yay!! 
> 
> Featuring: freezing evenings at Skyhold and these people still not feeling cold as they should, rogue f!Trevelyan fighting off insomnia with dagger practice, further het aka further DA men worshipping their goddesses (this is Cullen's turn) because I needed this as therapy this week, further stream of consciousness and mad sentence structures, further randomness, further hints at trauma and withdrawal and nightmares and dealing with the massive weight of saving the world.
> 
> Set after What Pride Had Wrought but without massive spoilers other than a mention of the Well of Sorrows.
> 
> Also, this is basically feels. Feels with some sex at the end. 
> 
> Also, I spent too much time in these games collecting elfroot and thinking about how its painkilling properties are more immediate when it's chewed. I have no excuse.
> 
> The soundtrack for this one was Ursine Vulpine's cover of 'Wicked Game', on repeat.
> 
> Now with amazing art by [Vjatoch](https://vjatoch.tumblr.com) included at the end!!

He wakes up gasping for air and clutching at sheets, and for a moment he thinks his howling from the dream followed him into reality, until he realises it's the wind, carrying sleet through the open balcony doors. She leaves them open for him when they spend the night in the obscene opulence of her golden Orlesian bed, knowing that the promise of freedom on the mountain air and the open sky help him sleep, reminders that he's not trapped, that he's in Skyhold, that he's with her.

When his breathing eases and the fragments of his dream fade enough to let him think, he takes notice of the pain stabbing frantically at his legs, and of the absence next to him. He usually wakes when she does, but this time the nightmare -the memory- had held him too tightly in its clutches, and the pain flares up at the same time he berates himself for his lack of awareness, underlying panic making his heart race with the knowledge that he would have failed to protect her if a threat would have presented itself.

The last of the candles have died out, snuffed by the wind, and her clothes are not on the floor, where they'd slipped from his hands earlier. The memory of her kisses hasn't yet cooled on his skin, the scent of her hands in his hair, and he can still feel where she's left the blurred shape of her lips along his collarbone, and his blood is singing, not for lyrium, for once, but begging for the sight of her.

He pulls clothes on without much thought, not bothering with armour, the absence of her daggers hinting at her destination. He limps down the stairs, his hip feeling misaligned with its joint, making shame burn in his cheeks, but there's no one around to witness it, and he masks it when he walks out into the hall, where some guards are making tired conversation, straightening at the sight of him, and making Varric, who's writing by firelight at his table in the corner, laugh. 

'She's gone that way, Curly,' Varric says with a grin that wishes itself innocent, and Cullen shakes his head and walks outside, down more stairs that are slippery with ice.

By the time he gets to the training grounds, the pain has made him angry, but the sight of her quietens his frustration. She knows he's there, of course, her head cocked slightly, like she's listening to his slow advance through the sleet even as her poise doesn't falter for a second.

It's not the first time he's watched her train, but it always takes his breath away. She moves like a dancer and the rain seems to move with her, gliding around her steps as she practices her dual-wielding attack, side-stepping around the dummy, light and agile on her feet, flashes of movement that are so quick even Cullen's trained eye can barely keep up. She's as skilled in parrying as Cassandra is with her swords, but Evelyn's ever quicker, ever deadlier, and he wonders how her enemies feel when they realise she's struck them moments after the fact.

He leans against the wall of the armoury and watches her dance around the dummy, striking and counter-striking, her movements flowing, but he notices the tension in her shoulders and the fade-light flashing undimmed from her hand and he knows why she's training in the middle of Skyhold's night, why she's not even feeling the rain and the ice on her skin. She's burdened by the mark, and the Well, and the fate of the world, and all he can do is stand by her side, because he can't protect her from any of those things.

'Would you like a partner?' he asks, his voice not managing to be louder than the wind, but she hears him and turns and raises an eyebrow at his stance, at the way he's keeping weight off his right leg.

'Are you sure you can take it?' she replies, and there's an edge in her voice that makes his anger bloom further, that makes him stand up straight, that makes him curse out loud when the pain makes him flinch.

'Of course I can take it,' he says, the edge in his voice rising to meet hers, and the green of her hand matches the glint in her eyes for a moment, and Cullen can taste the metal of danger on his tongue, the potential for a fight, another clash of stubbornness born from frustration and pain, but then her eyes soften and she sheathes the daggers and walks closer to him until she can touch him, her hand warm on his cold cheek, and he closes his eyes and breathes her in, his forehead against hers.

She smells like rain and ice and the sharpness of steel, like the intoxicating sweetness of her expensive soap (one of the few luxuries she keeps from the extravagant gift baskets the merchants of Val Royeaux send her) clinging to her skin and her hair. She smells like leather, like warmth, and faintly like him, like their sheets, and he knows his faith should be his only guiding light, but she shines so much brighter, brighter even than Andraste herself, and the way he feels doesn't seem blasphemous.

'I meant only that I'd rather you didn't use the pain as an excuse when I beat you, Commander,' she says, with a wicked smile he knows the taste of.

Her hand slips under his worn cotton shirt and finds his hip, splaying over it, her palm warm, and he finds it frustrating, how easy it is for her to see through all his tells despite how much effort he puts into masking the pain, but even though she's not a healer the comfort of her touch is undeniable, and he allows himself to sink against her in relief, letting her carry some of his weight despite how weak it makes him feel, and she kisses him as a reward, her lips cold at first but quickly warmed by his. She lingers over the scar on his lip, like she always does, and he loses his breath over the redness his stubble has left along the corners of her mouth, like he always does, and then she pulls out an elfroot leaf from her pocket and slips it in his mouth like it's a normal thing to do, and he thinks no herb could be more of an analgesic than the taste her fingertips leave on his tongue, but he chews on the leaf anyway, dutifully.

She cocks an eyebrow at him as he finds himself distracted by her dark hair, fallen loose in the wind and curling around the enticing curve of her neck that remembers the shape of his mouth, and it takes her turning away before he remembers to walk into the armoury for a sword. 

By the time he returns, she is spinning around the dummy again, and he can't help from commenting on the perfection of her posture, and she laughs without stopping, not even out of breath when she says 'they called my instructor 'the Dancer', and it wasn't because of her aptitude for the remigold, though of course she excelled at that too' and his mind wanders for a moment to the world she comes from, balls and courts and intrigues and titles, the world he will never be able to navigate without making a fool of himself, and of course that is the moment she attacks, like a whisper, and he barely has time to dodge her, and from then on it's an intricate choreography where they move together on the inhale, twining around each other, and then away on the exhale, and he feels embarrassingly clumsy in the wake of her grace, but she's out of breath now, her cheeks flushed red, and she's grinning, and he's laughing, neither of them feeling cold or pain or the remnants of nightmares, until he slips in the mud and his leg gives out in a paralysing flash of pain. Evelyn reaches for him but she can't catch him in time, and his aching hip takes the impact of his weight and his vision blurs and darkens, and he lets himself lie back, despite the freezing rain seeping through his clothes and numbing his face until Evelyn drops to her knees right next to him, covering his body with hers like he needs saving, her hands on his cheeks and her lips on his forehead and her breath staggering around his name like she's scared, even though this is nothing.

'It's alright, Evie, don't...,' he starts saying, but she's not listening to him, her hands mapping his skin like she's trying to coax the pain from him, like she wants to carry the weight of that as she carries the weight of everything else, and he thinks again about how much he tries to hide the pain and the demons from her and how she sees it all regardless, how she's the one who holds him when he wakes up screaming, how she doesn't let go when the need for lyrium makes him shake so badly he thinks he's breaking, and all he wants is to protect her but she's the one constantly saving him, constantly saving them all.

'Evie,' he says again as she hides her face and the fear in her eyes between his neck and his shoulder, her breath and her lips warm on his skin, her hand covering his hip again like she's trying to hold him together, and his arms find their way around her waist to press her to him harder because he needs to feel her, and laughter spills out of the tavern as its door opens, but no one notices them embracing each other on the ground like fools as the sleet turns to snow and tangles itself in her hair, making her look even more ethereal than usual, and when he says her name again it sounds like a prayer, and she looks at him and smiles, her fingers brushing the wildness of his hair away from his face, and she kisses him as all grows quiet around them, the peaceful quiet of snowfall that makes Cullen feel like they are all there is in the world, like there is nothing but her, and it feels right because he can't even feel the pain of his failing body anymore, just her heartbeat (and his matching its rhythm), and her mouth, and the way she's touching him, and the fervour he feels as he worships her.

They kiss in the snow like the world isn't ending, like they can afford languor, like she's not going away again soon, leaving him to his drills and his strategies and his fears and the way he stops breathing until he catches sight of her crossing the bridge, returning to him, ending his vigil on the battlements. They kiss until they're both shaking with the cold, until there is more laughter coming from the tavern, people leaving it in drunken hazes and singing off-key and still taking no notice of them, but Cullen knows it's near dawn, and Cassandra won't be nearly as unobservant when she shows up for her morning practice. He sits up with a grimace and lets Evelyn pull him to his feet, lets himself lean on her shoulder, and she takes most of his weight like she can barely feel it, and if he'd ever have made the mistake of underestimating her strength he'd have been surprised, but he's always known better, since the very first moment. 

She hesitates at the steps leading to the hall, and he knows she's thinking about there being less flights of stairs leading to his room in the tower, but he thinks her bed will still preserve some of their warmth from earlier while his will be freezing, so he leads her up. In the hall the guard has changed and Varric has gone to bed, and harried servants are lighting fires and setting up tables for breakfast, trying to rub the cold out of their skin and the sleep out of their eyes, and no one even spares them a glance as they move quietly, side by side, her arm around his waist and his around hers, shoulder to shoulder, still covered in mud.

When they make it to her room, snow greets them, a flurry dancing its way through the open balcony doors, and Cullen's thoughts of returning to work vanish when he hears her laughter, when he sees the childish joy on her face and the way the mark has gone quiet. She notices that he's still shaking and pulls his clothes off him like they bother her, wrapping him in one of the blankets that have fallen on the floor and pushing him gently onto the bed, and he watches her watching him as she undresses, snowflakes in the air around her like she's part of a dream, and her breath is misting in the cold, but her bed is warm, and he beckons her to slip under the blanket and pulls it up over the two of them when she does, hiding them from the snow and the wind and the world, and they're so close Cullen thinks no one could ever separate them again, her strong thighs framing his hips, keeping the pain at bay, and her hair raising goosebumps along his chest, her forehead pressed to his and her eyes, green and inescapable, seeing all of him, and he'll never understand why she keeps choosing to stay, but he'll pray for it anyway.

'Cullen, you should sleep a little longer,' she says, her breath becoming his, and he shakes his head and brushes his fingertips along her ribcage, her skin so warm now that he doesn't even remember the way cold feels, and her hands tangle in his hair, and she kisses him, and the hunger on her tongue tastes like his, and his love for her feels limitless, and he says it when their lips breaks apart, says it in the nothing space between them, says it as his hands touch her, worship her, making her move against him in a way that is pure instinct, in a way that can't be choreographed and studied, and she's even more breathtaking like this, and he knows gods would fall to their knees for her, but he's the only one here now, the only one who gets to see this, and he knows exactly how to touch her, knows exactly how to revere her, and he doesn't need anything else other than the sight of her, but she takes him inside her anyway, and the blanket falls from her shoulders and even the mountains around Skyhold seem to sing for her along with the wind and the snow, and there is no pain, there is no fear, because there is nothing but her, and Cullen is hers, hers, hers, with his unworthy body and his greedy heart and his innumerable weaknesses, and she's the salvation he's been seeking all his life, and he gives her everything, everything, everything, and her voice breaks around his name, and he has never felt more whole.

They breathe together for long moments after, still holding on to each other, all entwined limbs and matching heartbeats, and morning brings with it frost and a fierce bright light, and Cullen kisses the freckles on Evelyn's shoulder and wraps the blanket around her again, and whispers words that lack finesse but that make her smile softly anyway, and he draws senseless patterns along the hint of sweat on her lower back until she falls asleep, and it still feels like nothing can ruin this, like nothing will take her away, and as he holds guard over her dreams, he prays that she will always return.

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=vintc0)


End file.
